Loudoun County leaders will need to make sure that the Hidden Lane Landfill does not become a dump of another kind over time – a money pit for remediation efforts.

The site is already a health concern. What is troubling about initial talks regarding how to clean up the site is that it has taken so long for Hidden Lane to be added to the National Priority List because of industrial solvent contamination dating back years.

Trichloroethylene (TCE) causes cancer. What took so long for a response?

One reason behind the delay is that the federal government has reduced federal funding for such clean-ups. According to The Assault on Reason by former Vice-President Al Gore, the federal Superfund used to clean-up such sites has decreased in size during the Bush administration from $3.8 billion to a deficit of $175 million.

Another factor that people should take notice of is that there also has not been any firm cost estimates of this clean up. EPA officials said that the remediation investigation will begin in March 2008, but did not say much else.

To tell you from personal experience, the clean-up process will not be brief, easy or clean. In the early 1990s, I had a summer job at an environmental testing lab. I had to help perform many of the well tests that will probably need to be done to determine the extent of the contamination. This type of testing takes years and can be very costly.

Once this type of mess is made, the damage never really disappears. It can only be managed.

Let’s not fool ourselves about who is going to pay for the funding of these efforts either. While residents may have suffered for years from the contamination, Loudoun residents will pay for some of the costs. It’s all our money one way or another that is going into the environment abyss.

It is interesting how landfill proponents often talk about how such sites will benefit residents if they are managed properly. They often cite some locations as potential moneymakers for communities.

It does not seem like Loudoun will profit from Hidden Lane either from a health standpoint or otherwise anytime soon.